The Purge (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. Happens to be a Saturday in real time here today in the studio. I've been busy this week with ministry and doing some other things, lots of meetings and counselings and providences, pot providences.

So anyway, it's good to be back here in the studio, record a few shows, and off we go. I probably wouldn't have come in today to record new shows. For Fred's sake, I would have put a rerun on, but I just heard that we are having so many downloads from nocompromiseradio .com that you all, you listeners, are crashing a pretty big internet site.

That is to say pretty big. We've got a lot of data and a lot of stuff, and so they've had to tweak it a little bit. That's kind of fun, so it motivated me. I'm thinking we've got to keep going, show 1800 or something like that.

If you want to write me, it's info at nocompromiseradio .com. With few exceptions, we will write you back. Few exceptions. What else is going on? You can get Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise on Kindle at the Amazon deal, or if you'd like a hard cover, sorry, hard back, hard copy.

This is gonna be harder than I thought. You have to go to nocompromiseradio .com. If you want a $3 off promo coupon code, it is 1517. Just think of Luther 1517. Got some good news the other day. I'll be speaking in Wittenberg next May.

Not main speaker. Main speakers are MacArthur and James White and Steve Lawson, those kind of guys, ball washer. I'll be a breakout session, and we're gonna have No Compromise Radio live for one hour.

Or maybe it's not live. I don't know what we do. I record it live, and maybe it hits you via that. So that's good news. I'll be in Detroit here soon, Portland here soon for a conference about Christ Jesus.

I believe this is Trinity Bible. Will Custis is his name, the pastor there, so you can type that in if you're in the Portland area. Mid-April, that'd be great. Would love to see you. I think that's about all I've got here.

If you want to order bunches of books, 10 or more No Compromise sexual fidelity books, just email me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com, and we'll work something out for you for a deal. I was enjoying my time with Kirby Myers down in Annapolis this week, and I got to talk to some of the midshipmen, both men and women, I learned, called midshipmen.

I spoke on deck two of a particular building on Knott Campus, Knott, what else do people call a place where they meet? But I was on the yard. I went, yad. And I talked about Proverbs 5 and sexual fidelity and got a really good tweet, email back from Kirby from one of the students who was engaged and called themselves a Christian, probably were, probably they are, and were doing some things that they shouldn't have been doing and they don't want to again until marriage.

So I thought that was pretty cool. It's a great opportunity. Kirby works for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes there and has entree into the students' lives, the athletes' lives, and that was really, I like being on the campus.

Like, yeah, I've got my Navy sweatshirt now and stuff. Anyway, I try to say a few military things. I don't know, they probably saw me as the gomer that I am. Homer, gomer. See, if I say gomer now, I think of a female in the Bible.

Sweat Lodges as Purification Ceremonies

What I'd like to talk to you about today a little bit with my intro is sweat lodges. I don't know if you know much about sweat lodges, but you can maybe imagine a Clint Eastwood movie. And these sweat lodges had a couple different names to them, at least in English, I don't know about in Indian.

Purification ceremonies, or sometimes they just call these sweat lodges sweat. That might be a t-shirt company too, I don't really know. And what would you have in the sweat or the purification ceremony sweat lodge?

Problems in life, guilty conscience, sinned against the gods are the gods, S's are the God, and you would make a hut. Some cultures, it was a beehive looking deal, dome shaped, and you would use natural materials for that, sticks and stones.

And typically the American indigenous peoples, can I say American Indians? Is that okay to say? If you're offended by Washington Redskins, number one, you probably aren't listening to the show because you wouldn't like anything else I said either.

But number two, look up the word Oklahoma, and you're not gonna be able to stop with the Redskins, Oklahoma's next, and then what's after that? Well, that's just a little freebie there. What would happen in these sweats, in these sweat lodges purification ceremonies?

You'd have this dome structure, oblong hut and steam baths, rocks would be put in there, you'd pour water on these hot rocks, and then there would be this vapor, steam that would come out, and you would sweat out a lot of liquid.

And with that, you could cleanse your system. It's a good figure of, good illustration, a good analogy, you're sweating that kind of bad stuff out, and that would include spiritual things as well. I did read that Aztecs and Olmecs did sweat bath ceremonies known as Temazcal, as a religious rite of penance and purification.

And it seems to make sense, right? You're sweating out impurities out of your body, and that's a good picture of getting rid of the rest of impurities, sins. So this is a purification ceremony. There would be prayers offered in most of these cultures, sometimes drums, and you would give offerings to whatever spirit was and part of the spirit world.

And this would be included in sun dances as well. So sweat lodges. I did find out many of these cultures, you had to have training to do sweat lodges. You just can't walk in, you can't saunter on in and be Mr. Sweat Lodge.

You have training, you have to know how to speak the language, the indigenous language fluently. You can't designate yourself to be one of these elders. That's kind of interesting. I was listening to Hebrew so much this week.

We'll make more comments on that maybe another time. You would take the beehive dome-like, igloo-like sweat lodge and you have to orient it to the proper direction so that you are in tune with the environment, however they work these.

Prayers, songs, drummings, like I said. A religious ceremony. It's basically it's what's going on. There are times when you would build the sweat lodge and you'd have to be completely silent or you'd have to fast while you were doing it.

Sometimes you'd have to sweat in complete darkness. Isn't this interesting? More than you ever thought you would learn about sweat lodges in No Compromise Radio, also known as purification ceremonies.

Why Sweat Lodges Cannot Purify Sin

Well, here's the problem with some of these. Well, here is the problem. You don't really have your sins purified in a sweat lodge. None do you. Second problem, and it's a big problem but not as great as the first problem.

Sweat lodges sometimes kill you. If you don't have the right guy leading it or you don't construct it properly, you can die from overexposure to heat. You can become dehydrated. You can breathe in smoke and you can suffocate.

I also learned, and this is a fascinating thing to me here on No Compromise Radio, just a bunch of information you have, a little useless information. We'll get to the spiritual part, hang in there. It's not that hard to think of purification ceremony.

If you got a rock from the river that had an air pocket in them or use a rock that was wet and then you poured on this hot, you know, this water, you get the rocks all hot and then poured on this water.

I did learn this week that rocks with air pockets or too much moisture could crack and they actually could explode. Now, I didn't read any place that there was a death caused by exploding river rocks, but I do know that since 1995, eight people, recorded eight people have died in sweat rituals.

Now, these are typically new age and the majority of people since 1995 died in, where would you just imagine in the United States? New age kind of sweat rituals, purification rituals would take place.

And I mean, my knee jerk is, my gut is Sedona. And the actual truth of the fact is in 2009 new age retreat, James Arthur Ray organized something and three people died, 21 more became ill. It wasn't set up right.

Sedona, Arizona, bond set $5 million. I don't know what the outcome of the trial was. These poor people, they didn't have to die. Well, they eventually had to die, but they didn't have to die normally because it could have been prevented.

They're trying to get their sins purged and then they're purged instead. But the thing is to really have your sins purged, there has to be death. These people didn't have to die, but to actually have their sins purged, somebody had to die.

But the thing is it's not Gordon Reynolds, Kristen Babcock, David Hawker, Rowan Cook, Paige Martin, Kirby Brown, Elizabeth Newman, or James Shore. The person who has to die so that there's cleansing of sin and its guilt, as you know, is Jesus Christ.

Christ's Purification of Sins in Hebrews 1:3

Today on No Compromise Radio, we're going to talk about cleansing, purification. How can dirty, defiled, filthy sin and sinners be forgiven, be cleansed, be purified? And what I'm talking about today stems from the study of Hebrews chapter one, verse three, talking about Jesus with these right credentials.

It says, after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Jesus cleanses sins. He cleanses sinners. He makes filthy sinners clean. Dirty iniquity is pardoned. Sins stain, and now Jesus purifies.

Let's just make it into preaching mode. If you're listening to me today and you're a Christian, just how glad are you that you have your sins cleansed? To what degree is it relevant? No, no, no, I need to learn, you know, how to make my wife happy with me.

I need a sermon on buying a stuffed teddy bear with some chocolates and putting it at the back of the freezer. And while my wife is looking for the cream of corn in the can that we put in the freezer.

Do people do that? I don't think so. When was the last time you had cream of corn? My chair here in the studio is still broken. Joey, Joey did it, found out. Said, put it back the way it was. Couldn't do it.

Broken, and now it's kind of lumpy, the lumpy chair. It's tilted to the side. Jesus makes purification. So we're just going to sit on that a little bit. The other day for my family worship time, sat down with my three girls who are at home, Luke's at the master's college, along with my wife and I said, let's make as many observations as we can when it says that Jesus made purification for our sins.

Having made purification for our sins, or for sins, purification of sins. What kind of observations can we make as we want to study the Bible? Now, there are many things that have been said about Jesus so far in this relative clause.

Five things before, one after that's related, the sitting down because the job is finished. But which one's the best? Creating the world, pretty cool. Inheritance, cool. A full glory of God, cool. Exact imprint representation, cool.

Upholds all things, cool. Everything's cool around here. But this is the grand work. As Jesus upholds all things and brings it to its end and consummation, sin's got to be dealt with. How are you going to be in glory?

How's there going to be a glory? What about heaven if the sins aren't dealt with? When he had made purification of sins. So Jesus himself, by the way, this is a middle tense. He makes purification for our sins.

The writer of Hebrews thinks this is great. Of course, what's he talking about? He's talking about the cross. He's talking about Christ Jesus dying on the cross, which he's not on that cross anymore. We know because he's seated at the right hand of the father.

But here we have Jesus on the cross and the writer of Hebrews with exclamation early on discusses this very fact. Paul would later write, or earlier wrote, "'For the word of the cross is folly "'to those who are perishing, "'but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

"'Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, "'but we preach Christ crucified, "'a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.'". Remember in the book of Hebrews, there are some people who are really believers.

There are some people who aren't, but maybe you're thinking about it. There are other people who have turned their back on the Lord Jesus. And I'm talking about Jewish people and there are the adherent Gentiles that this would certainly apply to as well.

And okay, what do we do? Should we follow this Jesus? Should we listen to him? He's greater than the prophets, greater than angels, greater than Aaron, greater than Moses, greater than the Old Testament, covenantal system, Old Covenant.

What should we do? And now he says, listen, let's talk right away about purification of sins. He doesn't back off. He doesn't say, now let me give you all these signs that you need. No, let's talk about Jesus who his death was a stumbling block to Jews.

This is an excellent thing. This is a wonderful thing. This is a grand thing. He doesn't push it under the table. That's what I love about preaching. I regularly talk to people and meet people at the gym and other places.

And I know what they want me to tell them, but I don't tell them. I tell them the opposite. And I have a lot of respect for Ray Comfort, even though I disagree with him on a few methodologies, a few methodological, theological things here or there.

But I regularly play way of the master to my kids to see if they'll pick those things up. But also just because lots of things he tells the people that people don't want to hear. That's really what we have to do.

We're telling people, I think in all the years that I've been doing radio, I've never had my glasses scrape that right there, never. Now we just did it two times, maybe even three. Purification of sins, purging.

This is as relevant as it gets. People say, well, hey, we're getting persecuted. They're taking our homes. You can look at Hebrews 11 and 12. They haven't quite shed blood yet for their faith or their closeness to the faith, moving in the direction of wanting to believe, associating with Christians, but it's coming.

And maybe it's not really, maybe we need to be taught how to buy underground food or something, that'd be relevant. Could there be anything more relevant than your sins being cleansed? Friends, if you have a pastor and he talks about Jesus's life and death and work all the time, and you walk out of the church saying that wasn't very relevant, well, a few things might be happening.

Number one, the pastor might not be telling you how relevant the cross is, how active and passive obedience is relevant. He should make those connections for you. But maybe it's just you. Maybe you have a hankering for things that are relevant, practical applications, stuff that you could hear at a firewalking conference, at a moralistic conference, at some other conference.

Did I tell you that this chair bugs me? Anybody know that? I'm about ready. Do you ever get so frustrated with things? Sometimes you're just like, I'm just gonna push it too hard and I'm gonna break it.

That was not a good sound. Did you hear that? It's just like, I'm so frustrated and I could just break this thing. Now we've got the squeaky chair. If you've ever found yourself in a vice list, I didn't say in vice grips, although many times just with the vice on the workbench.

As kids, we would put our fingers in the vice and then slowly turn it around and see how tight we could get our fingers clamped down by the vice before we'd have to let up. And that hurt. But you had kind of a cool indentation, didn't you?

It was kind of a marking. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's Galatians 5, 19 to 21. If you look back in your life, I mean, these things shouldn't be your practice now or you've got to say to yourself, how can I call myself a Christian?

But in your life, if you've had sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, and the list goes on, those things need to be cleansed and you need to be purified. And if you think of two boxes, one's sin and the other's holiness, how do you bring people who are in the sin box into the holiness box?

Well, if you just bring them in the way they are, they're going to be obliterated by the glory of God, the holy transcendence of God. It's like nuclear winter. So you've got to cleanse them. And of course, there's a positional cleansing and then there's a sanctifying cleansing.

I understand that, but there has to be a cleansing. And when Jesus did the work at Calvary, he said, it is finished, and he sat down. He cleansed. Redemption accomplished and applied. You have to read that John Murray book.

As much as I wanted John Murray to believe in all three covenants, works of grace and redemption, as much as he didn't and maybe he was influenced by Barth, I still think that book is rocking. The Imputation of Adam's Sin is another John Burry book, John Burry-mook, John Burry-mook.

When R. Scott Clark said to me, I was catching up on my no-cos and he asked me a question. I wrote to him and said, now that I know you listen, it makes me nervous-er. I was already nervous, now I'm nervous-er.

So Dr. Clark, I'm at least trying. I'm trying to kind of parse some theology here. There's another vice list in 1 Corinthians 6. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Of course, they can be sanctified and washed and justified. We understand that, but if you're on that list, you're not pure, you are dirty, filthy, and you need cleansing. How relevant is the purification of sinners accomplished by Jesus alone?

My point is, it's very, very relevant. If you'd like to get into that holiness box, holy box, that is heaven and the presence of God, Revelation 28, but as for the cowardly, the faithless and detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

I have been cowardly, I have been faithless, I have been detestable, I have murdered, that is hated in my heart. I have been sexually immoral. I don't know about sorcery, maybe with the drug thing, pharmacaia, I've been an idolater, I've been a liar.

And of course, I still have some residual sins, but it's not lifestyle. My lifestyle is not dominated by sin like it used to be because I'm regenerated. I'm washed, I'm justified, I am redeemed. God has made propitiation for me.

How relevant is purification? I mean, there are some sins that people commit. They wanna take a shower when they're done. They wanna take a shower the next day. They wanna take a shower when they've sit and thought about it.

And it's just like the sweat lodge. You sit in the sweat lodge and you think, you know what? I wanna get all these impurities out of my physical body. But it is a nice little picture of an illustration of having all the bad things come out of my spiritual system.

All the little particles and the bad things coming right out. That's a good picture. And similarly, when Jesus purges sins and sets down, he's dealt with a sin problem. And when you think of the writer of Hebrews, as he talks to these folks that have all the cleansing, ceremonial purification rites that accompany everything from a woman who's just given birth to a boy or a girl or how to cleanse ceremonially.

I wanna say it's Leviticus 14 with the lepers and the purging of them ceremonially with the blood and hyssop and sprinkled. People just want to have cleansing. So I ask you the question, if you're a Christian, if you've been cleansed of your sins, are you thankful?

Do you think it's practical or relevant? And if you're not a Christian, you need to be cleansed. Jesus did the work and now you need to believe that he did the work for a sinner like you. My name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.